Yes, but that doesn't seem to really be the case with the iPad/iPhone pricing. They use the same processor. I don't see huge differences in their motherboards. The case and screen would be more expensive for the iPad.

Sure, the SoC/PoP is the same but the logic board in the iPad is spread out compared to the iPhone. Apple really stepped up their game with the iPhone 4 design.

Quote:

The technology has improved, but I don't think it's a technology issue. At current prices (which are NOT controlled by Moore's Law), it just costs to much to double capacity.

Moore's original statement included "complexity for minimum component costs" which does imply that the cost per year (as originally stated, then later stated to be 2 years, but never 18 months) would be the same with the doubling.

Moore was not talking about NAND flash, he never even dreamed of nanometer sizes we use today, and even he stated it as a measure of just the next ten years or so not a progression that would last forever.

As we've seen with NAND flash there is are reliably and performance hits with going to denser NAND that make it less than ideal for many needs. As I've asked before: should Apple use chips that won't last as long and be slower or use double the number of chips?

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I think it's unlikely for technical reasons (note that the links supplied to upcoming NAND don't list anything in-depth that would lead us to believe this would be right for Apple) but I do think that the people that are buying the best iPads are likely to buy the best iPad even if it was more expensive.

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True, there are other effects on pricing, but they've been steadily falling as well--
Take a look at SSDs, which, from a high level, is just a bunch of NAND with a controller:

back in 2008, an 80GB SSD would run you $400 to 600
in 2009/2010, you could get an 80GB SSD for $200 to 300
today, you can get 80GBs for about $150

Based on that, I think it's completely possible for Apple to double memory every 2 years without raising the price.

You're saying Apple can double the NAND flash in the same space according to Moore's Law which means without incurring any loss to the user for this advancement. That simply isn't true with NAND and you didn't even specify what kind of technological advance you are talking about.

If you mean moving from MLC to TLC there are issues with that, not to mention it's only a 50% increase in storage not a double. If you mean by reducing the lithography there are issues with that well.

I was speaking primarily of lithography. You mentioned there are issues with that, what are they? I was not aware of any major issues beyond the standard low early yields.

As for the cost portion, if you look at the $/GB for SSDs over the past few years, they have fallen pretty much in line with what moore's law predicts (double the capacity for the same $, or half the $ for the same capacity every 18 months), so I'm not understanding why you don't believe it holds true for NAND.

The commenters who are saying Apple can raise the price and people will just pay it need to live in the real world. Apple fell victim to this kind of thinking with the first Mac Book Air, and it was relegated to a niche toy, until Apple essentially reintroduced it at a lower price point. $579 is not an attractive price (especially when that is the lowest priced model), and if Apple makes that mistake, they will find themselves undercut just when competition is beginning to heat up.

The commenters who are saying Apple can raise the price and people will just pay it need to live in the real world. Apple fell victim to this kind of thinking with the first Mac Book Air, and it was relegated to a niche toy, until Apple essentially reintroduced it at a lower price point. $579 is not an attractive price (especially when that is the lowest priced model), and if Apple makes that mistake, they will find themselves undercut just when competition is beginning to heat up.

The MBA is not comparable here. The first MBA (starting at $1,799) was niche compared to the current MBA because the tech back then was considerably more expensive without offering any performance gain over cheaper products. It's only advantage were thinness and weight but that can only take CE so far before a price jump because too excessive for most people.

Is today's 13" MBA still less of a performer than the original 13" MBA? Yes, but now it's only $100 more than the 13' MBP and the performance difference is greatly reduced because of the SSD card is actually better than the 5400RPM HDD in the 13" MBP.

What I don't understand is why people think Apple would take a hit a huge hit on the profit yes, $80 from net profit is excessive when there is no evidence that Apple can't sell all the units they have? And why is no considering that this $80 is a compromise in order to corner the tablet market like they did with the PMP market? What if it's really onver $100 more to produce due to increased Foxconn wages, this lawsuit with ProView, the display resolution, the display panel tech, the backlight tech, the GPU, the amount of RAM, and other considerations? IOW, why is assumed that every increase would come with everything being better -and- cheaper than it was the year prior? Tech doesn't work that way and surely has had no problem raising prices when they felt it was needed. Do you really think they won't sell all their iPads if they make them a lot better and have to charge for it?

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The commenters who are saying Apple can raise the price and people will just pay it need to live in the real world.

The real world is not a bunch of people claiming stuff and showing their biases on an internet forum of course.

In a few weeks, out there in the real world when the iPad 3 goes on sale, if it indeed has a price that's higher than the previous model, then mark my words, it will be a record selling product regardless. I will have been proven right and all of the people who are claiming that it's too highly priced will have been proven wrong. That's the real world.

Apple already makes a hefty margin on these. Considering the Android onslaught, they should accept a reduced profit in exchange for getting more of their product out there.

Why? I mean, doesn't the market dictate price and if the market will be OK with a modest price increase Apple is obligated to go there. They have shareholders to make happy and of course lots of people working for the company who are supposed to make as much money as possible.

By the way, there is no Android onslaught. I think that's really the point.

Apple already makes a hefty margin on these. Considering the Android onslaught, they should accept a reduced profit in exchange for getting more of their product out there.

An ipad really isn't an essential device. For the most part, people buy one because they want it. Given the infrastructure built up around the Apple ecosystem and the extra cash on hand, it's not feasible to think they will fade back to their prior position when the company was near bankruptcy. Even if this did happen, it would take much longer along with a lot of bad management.

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Originally Posted by wizard69

This is actually a wise move on Apples part as it will allow them to cover the incremental increase in the cost of a few parts but actually sell more features cheaper. People have to remember that if all the rumors prove true (or even part of them) iPad 3 will be skuffed with a number of more expensive parts. Everyone has focused on the screen which is an issue but let's not forget the other rumors like a vastly improved camera, 4G, more RAM and other goodies. Of those offered only RAM would be cheaper today and that only if Apple can use the same number of dies.

So while we need to wait and see, I'm not convinced that feature parity wise iPad 3 will be more expensive. We might actually be getting more.

Ram is one thing that would really help the ipad. It doesn't really have the virtual memory paging options of a typical computer, or at least I don't believe it pages to the storage system meaning that everything would need to be handled within ram.

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Originally Posted by Misa

Why do I always hear this kind of comment from people who don't like the price. Apple products are a premium luxury product. You don't see Louis Vuitton reducing it's price to compete with other designer brands or chinese mass-produced plastic stuff they sell at Walmart. This is the same with Apple. People want Apple because it's the Apple product, not the cheap knockoff.

While I agree with you that they don't need to reduce the price, your analogy is quite far off. This is a piece of consumer electronics. It is not a luxury item. It does not cost thousands of dollars. They are still mass market items. Apple just doesn't address the low end of the market, not that I blame them. Apple creates a lot of hype, and they've somehow retained a coolness factor in spite of their size, but they do make devices aimed at the masses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wiggin

Or a scenario could be that Apple doesn't want to cut the price of the iPad 2 by too much. If the component prices haven't dropped, then they may not have the room to lower the retail price by a lot without sacrificing their near-legendary margins. But they need to keep some sort of price differential between the models. So perhaps they drop the 2 by $20 and increase the 3 by $80 to achieve a $100 differential.

Given that it's been out for a bit, I would expect to see them drop the price on the older model more than that. I don't care as it'll probably be a couple more generations before I see a point in owning one.

Seems to me the iPad 3 has to be the same price or lower than the previous model. And, the 1 year old model should be $70 or so cheaper than the new model (and $100 cheaper would really boost sales more than $70 off).

It would be a mistake to raise prices, in the light of the Samsung competition (which is starting to attract my attention).

you will be one less person in my line I won't have to wait for when ordering my OUT OF STOCK iPAD3 when they do go on sale.

Don't let the door hit u on the a$$ when u leave... SAMESUNG will be happy to have your $$$

The commenters who are saying Apple can raise the price and people will just pay it need to live in the real world. Apple fell victim to this kind of thinking with the first Mac Book Air, and it was relegated to a niche toy, until Apple essentially reintroduced it at a lower price point. $579 is not an attractive price (especially when that is the lowest priced model), and if Apple makes that mistake, they will find themselves undercut just when competition is beginning to heat up.

Yes. It will deter new users for sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apple ][

The real world is not a bunch of people claiming stuff and showing their biases on an internet forum of course.

In a few weeks, out there in the real world when the iPad 3 goes on sale, if it indeed has a price that's higher than the previous model, then mark my words, it will be a record selling product regardless. I will have been proven right and all of the people who are claiming that it's too highly priced will have been proven wrong. That's the real world.

Upgrading to the iPad is easy - the cost is merely the cost of the depreciation on your old iPad plus this $90 premium. ( Without the premium it would be just the depreciation) So someone with an iPad 2 can move on for about $300 or so. ( Without the premium, $200, or so). this means the existing established base will indeed move on up, and it will sell like hot cakes. The idea that this "proves you right" is nonsense. New customers will be deferred - however they may get old iPads on ebay. The iPad 3 is an inevitable success given the installed base upgrade path, the question is whether it will be as big a success if it were selling at $399. The answer is no, since that is the way economics works.

Apple may be right to not care at this particular moment, and a cheap iPad 3 which has to handle the upgrades of millions of existing customers, might be supply contained for half the year if they sold it cheap, however they will need to get back to the old pricing sometime. I am sure they will, once the initial supply seems less constrained. That could be the holiday trick - a price drop on all models, including the iPad 2 ( if still selling).

we're talking about resolution that nearly matches what was on my 30" cinema display, squeezed into a 9.7" display just wow

I have a thought. That pricing chart definitely implies two distinct tiers of product lines if Apple remains consistent with other product naming conventions, then instead of "iPad 2" and "iPad 3" we might see a break to "iPad" and "iPad Pro"?

e.g. the current "iPad 2" gets an incremental speed bump, and remains named just "iPad" the retina-display/quad-core iPad gets the "Pro" moniker added

Having to keep adding numbers to the name is a pain like the iPod Touch, iMac, MacBook Pro and now MacBook Air, leaving off the 'version number' is pretty convenient

I think it's a very likely possibility Apple will keep multiple tiers of iPad, like they do with the iPhone now but as it's more a mobile computer than a 'smart phone', I think it may eventually join the computer device naming scheme

you will be one less person in my line I won't have to wait for when ordering my OUT OF STOCK iPAD3 when they do go on sale.

Don't let the door hit u on the a$$ when u leave... SAMESUNG will be happy to have your $$$

[insult removed] I have a pile dog crap with a apple logo on it, why don't you have some left overs. I have been in the IT community prior to the Macintosh, and if it was up to apple you would still be paying over 3k for a pc , closed hardware closed OS. Do they have a good product yes, and yes they will eat their own young for dollar. It is up to the consumer to push back, 580 for a IPAD, hell no.

How can you believe this document is legit if they still have the iPad 2 price starting at $499? Can someone explain?

After an entire year Apple wouldn't sell an old model for the same price it was last year. I feel like this year will be the same as any other. They will knock the price of the iPad 2 a little bit and introduce the iPad 3 at $499 for 16GB+Wifi.

I have not purchased in iPad in the past because it seemed like every time I convinced myself I could afford one, it was Christmas time and I knew a new model would be right around the corner.

My gut just tells me that Apple will not raise the price of the base model because they always seem to highlight how all their products are "affordable" by highlighting the base price. And I agree with a couple people on here that $499 is a mental barrier, for me at least.

I have waited so long to get an iPad that I will get it whether it is $499 or $579 and just hope that next year's model doesn't blow it out of the water.

I agree. Apple should keep the newest model at the present price point.

If Apple has to use some of its 100B to keep the price down that seems to be a great strategic use of those funds. If the margin has to suffer, no problem to this apple stock holder.

keep the lead and lengthen it.

Who could match an iPad 3 with a retina screen and other features at $499.

No one!!!

(they probably can't match it at $579 either but why not just blow everyone away>)

I don't agree that Apple should waste its money when it doesn't need but if they can release a 2048x1536 iPad for the same price points this year then I think we can effectively say the iPad has natural monopoly for the foreseeable future.

Also, The Verge released this article yesterday stating the price points will stay the same:

I agree. Apple should keep the newest model at the present price point.

If Apple has to use some of its 100B to keep the price down that seems to be a great strategic use of those funds. If the margin has to suffer, no problem to this apple stock holder.

keep the lead and lengthen it.

Who could match an iPad 3 with a retina screen and other features at $499.

No one!!!

(they probably can't match it at $579 either but why not just blow everyone away>)

I would prefer that Apple take the margin hit on the iPad2 and keep it in the product line at the lowest price possible. That would help keep competitors still struggling to compete and allow for more separation / differentiation between the iPad2 and the iPad3 products. If the two products are priced too close together I would be concerned that the iPad2 just wouldn't sell well in comparison to the iPad3.

I trust Apple will do the right thing and that they don't need my input..

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." Douglas Adams